Archive for the ‘Sustainability’ Category

21 Dec

New England Fisheries to Reopen, and the Missing Identity of Most Seafood

Posted by John Renehan in Aquaculture, Environmental Activism, Food & Beverage, Food Labeling, Marketing Claims, NOAA, Oceans, Sustainability.

Photo by Jim Maragos, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Some rights reserved.

Photo by Jim Maragos, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Some rights reserved.

The New England Fishery Management Council opened 5,000 square miles of protected waters off the coast of New England Thursday to new applications from commercial fishermen. These areas were closed in the 1990s to preserve habitat on the seafloor and give cod, haddock, and other species a safe place to spawn.

Fishermen have cheered the move, saying the 2010 adoption of a quota-based protection system made the geographic conservation areas an unnecessary restriction. Worried that 2013 will bring drastic cuts to the quotas for cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder, industry groups will have to wait until January for the Council to review further fish stock data.

Environmentalists and scientists are concerned in particular because the protected areas provide a haven for older female fish that help increase stocks – but hope that the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, which has to approve the vote and is expected to act by May, will be more cautious.

Fish are also noteworthy this week with the news – or reminder – that seafood fraud is widespread. That means seafood is often labeled as something it is not, usually a cheaper look-alike. A new report by Oceana, an international organization dedicated to ocean conservation, finds that 39% of seafood from 81 grocery stores in New York City was not what appeared on the label, and that 100% of the 16 sushi restaurants investigated sold mislabeled fish. Last year, a Boston Globe investigation found a problem of similar scope.

The problem goes beyond economic duping. Consumers and diners are buying fish whose incorrect labeling might mean it was caught illegally or contains unlisted and illegal chemical additives. Enforcement, however, has focused on health claims, and individual restaurants know that they are at little or no risk of being caught.

Personally, I was glad to read the tuna steak I bought last week had been injected with carbon monoxide to keep its bright red hue. Many of us in Seattle enjoy our inexpensive Japanese cuisine, but the New York wholesaler quoted in the Times is right: “People want cheap sushi, and this is what happens.”

14 Dec

Expiring Wind PTC: Who Stands Where?

Posted by John Renehan in Department of Energy, Power Plants, Public Utilities, Renewable Energy, Subsidies, Sustainability, Wind Power.

Photo by Francesco Gola. Some rights reserved.

In the intensifying battle over the extension of the wind energy production tax credit, a new tactic has emerged. The main lobby for extension, the American Wind Energy Association, on Wednesday announced its support for a middle ground solution. AWEA recommends a one-year extension, followed by a five-year gradual decrease in the PTC until it goes away completely. If gradually reduced until 2019, according to industry analysis, the PTC could be eliminated and a minimally viable industry could exist and be able to continue achieving cost reductions.

Our friends at Grist worry that this tactic essentially admits that the PTC is not actually needed, and that other renewable energy sources whose production tax credits expire soon, like solar, are left in a weaker position.

The tax credit, originally passed in 1992, has been extended three times. But now 17 days remain until its expiration, and the stakes are high for both sides.

Conservative groups argued in a letter to lawmakers Wednesday that the credit “essentially transfers taxpayer dollars from your constituents and subsidizes the states with such mandates.” The states without renewable electricity standards, mostly in the Southeast, Appalachia, and the Gulf Coast, generally have less installed wind power.

In addition, Republicans have pointed to the credit as a way to help close the deficit, as it will cost $12.1 billion over ten years. Not all Republicans are convinced, though. Joining many Democrats in voicing support for the extension are Republicans whose districts house more than 80% of wind installations.

Separately, the Department of Energy has offered some good news to the wind industry. DOE announced that seven projects will receive up to $4 million in grants to complete engineering, design, and permitting processes, and three of these will be selected to receive up to $47 million over four years with a target opening of 2017.

For readers to whom the above means anything, it is probably needless to say that DOE is optimistic about the energy potential from offshore wind generation. Data suggest that 4,000 GW of energy could be tapped in state and federal waters, which is four times the capacity of all existing US electric power plants.

25 Sep

The 2050 City

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Sustainability, Sustainable Cities.

In this TEDxYouth@MSC video, architect Gregory Kiss walks us through the next 38 years, in which the world’s urban population is expected to double. This shift, emphasizes Kiss, means that cities are where the “future environmental footprint of the world is going to be defined.”

After acknowledging the world’s most important renewable resource, The Youth (or, to his young audience, “you guys”), Kiss goes on to talk about all the other renewable resources we’re going to have to rely on in the year 2050.

Kiss has been working in “the art and technology of environmentally responsible architecture” for over 20 years, founding Kiss + Cathcart Architects in 1983. And he seems to have spent much of that time wondering – is it possible to build a truly sustainable city? One that generates its own energy renewably and provides its own food and water sustainably? During his TEDx talk, Kiss shows a slide with a picture of a city inside a dome: “Now we’re not suggesting that we want to build cities in domes,” he laughs, “but we’d like to see if it’s possible to have cities that perform that way.”

Kiss then walks us through modern day NYC’s use of the resources necessary to sustain such a city. The most striking set of slides first shows a pea sized spec on the map that represents the aggregated acreage of fields used to grow the vegetables eaten in NYC (data is for 2010). Kiss then jumps to a slide showing a basket-ball sized circle representing the amount of land is used to grow the vegetables that feed the animals that we eat.

But the slides are meant less as a scare tactic and more for baseline comparison. Kiss projects that by 2050 – through improvements in technology (solar panels, hydroponics) – we can shrink the geographic requirements for all these energy needs to an almost city-sized scale.

Kiss goes on to talk about some real-life projects he is working on in NYC that include adding features such as solar panels, rain gardens and green roofs to existing infrastructure, with varying results (one project generated about 25% of its own energy, while another was paying energy back into the system with 108% “energy independence”.)

His grand finale is a series of slides showing the design for a non-real project that he developed for a museum. It is an impressive, sustainable, and beautiful “mini-city” housed in a building that incorporates greenhouses, helicopter landing pads, movie theaters, wind turbines, and more.

The talk is worth a watch – it’s aimed towards kids, so don’t expect anything revolutionary, but seeing Kiss bristle with a restrained excitement and an optimism for our future is absolutely inspiring. It’s a great reminder that there are smart folks out there working on the kind of real-world problems that face us in the next few decades.

27 Jul

“Decentralized” Energy: The UK Leads the Way

Posted by John Renehan in Development, Investment, Power Plants, Sustainability.

Photo by CMG0220. Some rights reserved.

Often a development in the energy industry is chosen to be spotlighted in the Green Mien for the scope of its impact, but that is not always required. Some stories deserve to be told for their potential to describe one or two small threads that may prove to hold together a complex quilt – this is the case with today’s post. Environmental Finance has a piece about small energy projects in the UK installed at major energy-consuming locations like hospitals, manufacturers, and retailers, into which investment is pouring.

Sites like food retailer Waitrose’s store on the Isle of Wight host energy centers powered by available fuel (biomass from local timber at the Waitrose plant), which they call decentralized energy centers. Usually with thermal energy capacity between 1MW and 10MW, the centers generate power for their central energy need and sell surplus energy to nearby consumers. Hosts of these plants, the big hospitals and factories, see the benefits of mitigating against rising prices, securing energy supply, and potentially reducing environmental impact.

Because the projects in the UK are financed by multiple lenders before being converted to a long-term supply contract, the host energy-guzzlers are spared investing any capital. Investors in London are supposedly “queuing up” to finance these projects, whose feasibility has grown rapidly over the past few years. The security of the supply contracts attracts some investors, but the projects’ potential to address future energy costs and supply security are also encouraging businesses to consider an on-site energy facility.

Resources across the country are pouring into finding and developing new ways to power our lives, and the UK’s work in developing decentralized energy projects might just be blazing the path to the power plant of my dreams: just big enough to light a Walmart Supercenter.

13 Jul

Insurers Offer Coverage for Solar Developments

Posted by John Renehan in Power Plants, Renewable Energy, Solar Power, Subsidies, Sustainability, Tax Credits, Technology.

Photo by theregeneration. Some rights reserved.

Challenges to “green” energy developments abound. Compared to traditional companies even in the energy sector, means of financing projects are fast-changing, subsidies and tax credits are unpredictable, and data on projects’ returns are sparse. We wrote about trends in venture capital and IPOs for clean technology companies in February in a post recently linked to by The Atlantic, seeing energy storage and generation companies faring well in 2011. The wind industry is still waiting for Congress to vote on extending its production tax credit, and as we covered here, if it is not passed, the industry’s capacity might fall by three-quarters.

However, it is becoming easier for “green” developers to secure private financing in a functioning market. In January, we posted about a Deutsche Bank study aimed at providing data on the accuracy and reliability of energy audits associated with building retrofits, to encourage private investment in retrofits, the “low-hanging fruit” of carbon reduction. Now, insurers Assurant and GCube Insurance Services are offering an insurance product to help solar developers navigate the risks of mid-size projects, aiming to fill a gap in coverage that has often prevented developers from securing financing.

In particular, Assurant’s product uniquely bundles property and liability coverage with equipment warranty management, allowing developers to move beyond their skepticism and uncertainty toward warranty management frameworks. They offer $10 million of coverage per location – initially limited to photovoltaic projects in the US – ranging from 100kW to 3MW in capacity. Environmental Finance has a detailed description of the insurance product here.

As those behind the Deutsche Bank building-retrofit study did, we can hope Assurant’s product will lay the groundwork for further comprehensive coverage products in other clean technology sectors that might open the floodgates of private financing, maybe making debates like that over the wind PTC unnecessary.

27 Apr

The Economics of Hype: Rio+20

Posted by John Renehan in Carbon Markets, Climate Change, Environmental Activism, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Wind Power.

Photo by Ivan Herman. Some rights reserved.

In June, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Known as Rio+20 because it aims to address similar issues to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, its official discussions will focus on building a green economy to lift people out of poverty and improving international coordination for sustainable development.

Environmental Finance highlights the opportunities the conference will create for investors. Increased attention to Rio+20’s issues will focus public scrutiny on sustainability and countries’ policies, generating what Citigroup’s analysts call “green sentiment” in the markets. In addition to its effects on investment, media coverage might increase pressure on politicians to strengthen climate policies.

To illustrate this possibility, the analysts suggest that European politicians might leave the conference embarrassed about the low price of carbon dioxide permits in Europe and seek to raise prices through legislation back home. This would stimulate the carbon dioxide market and boost the low-carbon investments that depend on it, especially those made by alternative energy companies.

The U.S. wind industry, for example, depends heavily on government support, and is in the trenches of a campaign to pressure Congress to extend the production tax credit that expires at the end of this year (see our post on the topic here). Increased visibility of climate change on the global agenda could propel the issue, causing major uncertainty in the industry, to the top of legislators’ concerns.

Finally, Citigroup’s analysts say that sustainability reporting will boost engagement between companies, governments, and activists. At the very least, there will be a lot of journalists willing to go to Rio on business.

30 Dec

Vermont’s Plan for 90% Renewable Energy

Posted by John Renehan in Electric Cars, Fuel Efficiency, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Hydroelectric Dams, Power Plants, Public Utilities, Renewable Energy, Solar Power, Sustainability, Uncategorized.

Photo by Andrew Curtis. Some rights reserved.

While Irene proved little more than a light rain shower where I waited it out in New Hampshire, Tropical Storm Irene launched a surprise assault across the Connecticut River in Vermont. The resulting damage shocked the state and people across the country, but Vermonters now see the potential to rebuild infrastructure in a smarter way. The state government is hoping to align local, regional, and state energy policies to support “resilient growth,” foster economic stability, and safeguard the environment.  New Governor Peter Shumlin led the effort to develop a Comprehensive Energy Plan, Vermont’s first in more than a decade, setting their sights on obtaining 90% of their total energy from renewable sources by 2050.

Vermonters have a history of thinking progressively about their energy. In 2011, they got 23% of their energy from renewable sources, compared to 14% across the U.S. (though Knowledge Mosaic’s home state of Washington’s number stands close to 80%).  Even before Irene, the state had set a goal of reducing energy usage in state government by 5%. And while proud of their efforts to increase efficiency and keep demand for electricity down, the CEP goes further.

Identifying oil and fossil fuels, which remain the backbone of heating and transportation, as particular areas of focus, the CEP emphasizes four drivers of progress: finance and funding, innovation, outreach and education, and regulatory policy and structures. Their goal is to consider all four areas in every energy policy.

A first priority of the plan is to promote efficiency and make progress metrics, while continuing to improve the structure for allocation and pricing of energy. It supports reducing household heating cost through building codes and biofuels, and recommends a plan to move transportation infrastructure towards supporting electric vehicles.

It is a bold vision. But even the state’s own overview of the program recognizes that they are a “state leading by example.” Vermont’s economy is the smallest in the U.S. But they hope to make progress they could not consider if not facing significant infrastructure repairs across the state, and maybe have an outsized impact on other states’ future decisions.

8 Dec

Two Updates in Building Betterment

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Construction, Sustainability, Tax Credits, White House.

Photo by Benson Kua. Some rights reserved.

Earlier in the summer, The Green Mien covered the President’s Better Buildings Initiative (BBI), highlighting a recently published independent study that lauded the Initiative as a major American jobs creator.

Driving the Initiative is a vision of a “clean energy economy” supported in large part by an energy efficient infrastructure. The President intends to hit the Initiative’s target – improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings by 20 percent by 2020 – with a series of incentives ranging from updated tax credits to increased financing opportunities. The administrative actions called for by the Initiative affect a range of agencies: the Treasury, the DOE, and the Department of Commerce all are specifically called out, while every agency is directed to undertake energy retrofits on Federal buildings.

All was relatively quiet on the BBI front over the fall, but early December brought a slew of developments. One intuits a renewed sense of urgency (and frustration?) from the White House when reading the December 2 Presidential Memorandum and Fact Sheet on the BBI, which announce that the administration is focusing “on steps we can take without waiting for Congress to make the critical energy efficiency investments we need.”

Following on the heels of these announcements came a GAO-issued report that identifies “current initiatives by federal agencies to foster green building in the nonfederal sector” as well as the known results of those initiatives. While not explicitly related to the BBI, the report covers a lot of the same territory – namely an inventory of incentives for “green” building. The scope of “green” building is fairly broad compared to the energy-efficient focus of BBI, but the GAO found that “energy conservation or efficiency” tops the list of “green” elements that existing initiatives are focused on.

While the GAO tallied up 94 federal initiatives – implemented by 11 agencies – that foster green building in the nonfederal sector, the report noted that “the overall results of most initiatives and their related investments are unknown” and that these agencies may be “missing opportunities” to work collaboratively with each other.

Let’s hope that the agencies can collaborate – and get results – when it comes time to implement the directives the BBI.

16 Sep

The Bamboom: A Fast-Growing Grass Has Investors Seeing Green

Posted by Chris Hitt in Marketing Claims, Sustainability.

Bamboo is renowned for being the fastest growing plant in the world.  Its status as an environmentally friendly raw material – a more sustainable alternative to wood, pulp, and traditional textiles – is growing almost as quickly.  Bamboo’s ascendancy is even reflected in the IPO market: we can find five initial public offering registrations by companies for whom bamboo is an important if not central product.  All five have been filed since the middle of 2010.  The newest came in earlier today, in the form of an F-1 filed by Dragon Bright Mintai Botanical Technology (Cayman) Ltd.  The extravagantly named Hong Kong-based startup seeks to get into the business of bamboo “forestry” to meet the rising world demand for this woody grass.

Photo by Joi. Some rights reserved.

Dragon Bright does not go out of its way to market itself as an ecologically conscious company.  But on that score it is the exception among its fellow bamboo-focused registrants.  A recent case in point is Sugarmade, Inc. (S-1, 8/4/2011), a distributor of non-wood paper products.  Wearing its eco-passion on its (green) sleeve, the company declares that its use of such “earth friendly sources” as sugar cane and bamboo instead of wood “significantly reduces its manufacturing carbon footprint, energy consumption, and attendant water pollution . . . .”   Similar rhetoric is found in the filings of Biopower Operations Corp. (S-1, 2/9/2011; closed in August), which aims to use bamboo pulp as a biomass energy source; Artison Investments, Ltd. (S-1, 9/10/2010) , developing a composite building material made from bamboo; and Asia Green Agriculture (S-1, 9/20/2010; closed in July), cultivating organic bamboo shoots for the dinner table.

Perhaps even more illuminating is how other already-public companies have reinvented themselves to jump on the bamboo bandwagon.  In some cases, these transformations run a predictable course: for example, a company called Hemptown Clothing Inc. changed its name to Naturally Advanced Technologies Inc. and began supplementing its hemp-based textile offerings with other eco-friendly fibers like bamboo.  But in many other cases, the switch to bamboo seems to come out of left field.  Ivany Nguyen, Inc. (which grows bamboo for paper pulp) and Clenergy Inc. (bamboo for biomass energy generation) both began their corporate lives as mining companies.  And then there is One BIO Corp., whose business now includes the production of bamboo-based organic food products and fertilizers.  Long before it became focused on the growth of this versatile member of the grass family, back when it was still called Contracted Services, Inc., the company was invested in keeping grass short.  It offered commercial lawn mowing services.

21 Jun

Dear Agencies, May the Goods You Acquire Contractually Be Sustainable

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Agency Administration, Government Contracts, Sustainability.

Photo by lafa.pixellutions. Some rights reserved.

Sincerely, the President.

Last week law firm Pepper Hamilton threw a big wet blanket (though perhaps not undeservedly) on a new interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to promote sustainable choices in government contracts.

FAR is the set of rules (codified in Title 48 of the CFR) that govern government acquisition of goods and services. The interim rule – published in the Federal Register at the end of May – was intended to implement two separate Executive Orders dealing with environmental leadership and management (13423 and 13514) by requiring agencies to “leverage agency acquisitions to foster markets for sustainable technologies, materials, products, and services.”

Specifically, the new rule mandates that 95% of new contract actions for products and services (excepting weapon systems) are “energy-efficient,” “water-efficient,” “biobased,” “environmentally preferable,” “non-ozone depleting,” “contain recycled content,” or “non-toxic or less toxic alternatives.” Agencies are also required to “design, construct, maintain and operate high-performance sustainable buildings in sustainable locations.”

It’s clearly no small request.

And, unfortunately, Pepper Hamilton is able to poke a few holes in this seeming panacea for federal waste. According to the firm’s Alert, the interim rule fails to define terms like “non-toxic,” making it difficult for agencies to make well-informed decisions, and perhaps prompting manufacturers to roll out “difficult-to-prove” claims about the safety of their products.

Pepper Hamilton also calls into question one of the rules more sweeping proclamations that “[w]hen a policy in another part of the FAR is inconsistent with a policy in this part, this part […] shall take precedence for the acquisition of commercial items.” This policy preference, states Pepper Hamilton, “sweeps aside decades of carefully crafted, experience-based policies that were each developed to solve a particular government contracting problem.”

I’m so behind the spirit of the new rule that it’s hard not to bristle in its defense – I wouldn’t want to throw the sustainable baby out with the perhaps burdensome and complex regulatory bathwater. So I urge you to use the democratic process: if you have suggestions on how to make the Sustainable Acquisition amendments to FAR more air-tight, submit your comments by August 1, 2011. The interim rule went into effect May 31, 2011, but comments received will be considered in the formulation of a final rule.

« Older Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 207 other followers

%d bloggers like this: